Originally Posted by
SoCo KungFu
Yes, I saw this video during the first wave of Jake Mace commentary a few weeks ago when he first put it up. I commented on the thread at the time but it seems to have been deleted. Although, he also seems to have deleted some comments defending him from my criticism too, so whatever.
Yes its bad. Unfortunately, of the 3 mantis vids I've seen on his page, as bad as it is this is his most "correctly" mantisy mantis. There are at least some techniques that resemble some things I've learned, in a really butchered sort of way of "resembling." Things that he says are strikes that are actually throws, etc. Things that would be obvious if the angles of motion were correct but because someone pulled it from a tourny video they couldn't tell the difference. No particular system, but a miss mash of things it looks like someone saw and thought they knew what it was. And threw it together in a barely coherent pattern of movements.
As far as the rest of the Jake Mace/Rydberg stuff, other than the false "traditional" claims, which I frankly don't care about he seems to be at least moderately honest. Doing some back reading this is what seems to be the case:
He was a student of the Soards but he and his wife, along with a number of schools broke off from the Soards when the old dude elder geezer whatever they call them Soard got hemmed up in a sexual assault charge. Rydberg and his wife were subsequently banned from SD because they testified for the prosecution (or helped the prosecution in some way at least). Down the road at some point, Sin The (who has the most elegantly flowing mullet I've seen in years btw) reinstated Rydberg along with others when Mullins and some other dude were brought into leadership in the absence of the Soards. It seems Jake had enough of being in that caste system, because he was the one that apparently broke it off with Sin The not much later. It was then after Jake broke from The and the SD name that Grandmaster Flowing Mullet decided to go with the lawsuit.
From what I've read, it does seem that at that time Jake notified his students to the inner issues of all the legal stuff. It seems many decided to stick with him because his school seems to be the most successful one that has gone independent. Makes sense, Tempe is a college town. Whether or not he continues to tell them the origin of the stuff no one seems to be talking about. No one from the SD people that seem to know him I mean.
Anyways, not defending the dude, his mantis sucks. Not because he can't move. Not because he's not in shape. But because he doesn't seem to have a clue on mantis "theory" beyond mantis beak hook thing. Awesome, he learned the first of the 12 keys, 11 to go. Actually I guess it would be the 3rd, but whatever.
But he seems to be good with kids and despite what I think of his reasons for the advice he gives (ie, jumping on the BS pH diet nonsense) he is in shape himself and if he can get people in shape, I'll leave him alone. Although he seems to basically be ripping off P90X. But hey, how many fitness coaches don't these days? And beach body works probably deserved to be ripped off with that borderline pyramid scheme they've got going. As far as tradition, Lee Kam Wing made up a number of the "traditional" 7 star forms from what I understand. Chan Poi seems to have made up a number of the "traditional" tan tui mantis forms. Seems tradition isn't all its cracked up to be.